"This is..."
Looking down at the plate filled with roasted at sprinkled with white salt, yellow butter, and rosemary, Brune was sowhat confused as he looked at the people in front of him.
"It's for you to eat. You're going to the battlefield tomorrow, eat more." The cook, Brissa, waved away the boys and girls who stood drooling at the door.
Brune and Jonar sitting in the dining hall exchanged glances.
At last night's public eting, Horn announced the date of departure for battle.
Aside from preparing supplies, the reason for delaying a day was to give these war monks ti to say goodbye to their families and friends.
Brune didn't feel too nervous, or rather, he was so nervous that he had beco numb and couldn't feel it anymore.
In the morning, he had breakfast with Gashkour, and in the afternoon, he went to Jonar's neighborhood, and a few friends played ball together for a while.
Then they all went ho to pack their bags and prepare to head to the military camp.
Since the latest return ti to the camp was five in the afternoon, even though it was only three o'clock now, the dining hall was already preparing dinner for these departing war monks.
"Aunt Brissa, we often eat at in the camp." Jonar said with a grin, using a small knife to cut the at into pieces, grabbing a young boy and forcefully stuffing the at into his mouth.
Brune followed suit, giving a piece of at to each of the half-grown boys, and only when there was so leftover at and broth did he finally drink it all down.
Aunt Brissa suddenly had red eyes. She rushed forward and gave each of the three or five war monks a big hug.
"You are all good lads," Brissa said, wiping her eyes with her apron, "If I could, I really wish you wouldn't go to the battlefield."
"It's inevitable. If we don't go, then you will have to," said Jonar, patting Aunt Brissa's strong back to comfort her, "It's better if we go."
"No, no... damn nobles..." Brissa leaned on Jonar's shoulder, sobbing softly.
Brune stood next to Jonar, and while others might not have noticed, he heard a hint of choking in Jonar's comforting words.
"Oh, my stomach hurts."
Sure enough, after saying just a few words, Jonar suddenly clutched his face and ran towards the toilet.
Brune couldn't help but laugh, took a step as if to leave, but was tugged at the corner of his clothes by soone.
It was Old Jonar, looking a bit haggard, with two scratches on his neck: "Do you have ti to chat? I'll buy you a drink."
Following Old Jonar upstairs to the second floor, he didn't enter the small room as there were won inside.
Old Jonar ca out with two small cups of potato root wine, leaning on the wooden railing in the corridor with Brune, looking down.
Licking the lip of the wine cup, Old Jonar watched the children playing in the courtyard: "Do you know? Of my ten family mbers, only Jonar is my biological child."
Always "unflappable" Brune was instantly wide-eyed, was it really this startling?
"Kids like Lisa and Alita are from my cousin's family, their parents starved to death in the famine, so I adopted them," Old Jonar took another sip, "Unknowingly, I ended up adopting ten."
Brune then realized that this was a custom in Thousand River Valley, akin to a lineage-based insurance system.
It originated from the Kush people's tradition of communal orphan care during their tribal period.
The people of Thousand River Valley highly value kinship, and this custom of adopting orphaned relatives as one's own has significantly promoted this tradition.
Like Jeanne, who was adopted by Horn's father, Old Gallar.
"Have you seen these scratches?" Old Jonar turned his head, letting Brune see the marks on his neck.
"My wife says I've already made her lose her biological little daughter Karsenasha, does she have to lose her last child too?"
Brune didn't respond, he wasn't good with words and didn't know how to reply.
He just lowered his head and looked at Jonar playing hide and seek with his younger siblings in the garden.
Jonar, too, was just a teenager under twenty.
Thinking carefully, he himself was just over twenty and hadn't even married yet, which was really a loss.
"But I told her, Jonar is going to war so that little Jonar doesn't have to go, so that other Karsenashas don't have to go..."
Old Jonar looked at his reflection in the wine cup with a wry smile: "I can no longer go to the battlefield, but if you get the chance, help my wife take care of her children."
"I will."
Seeing Brune agreeing so decisively, Old Jonar suddenly laughed: "If there's a chance, help kill a knight."
"Okay."
"Don't push yourself, I'm saying if there's a chance." Perhaps Brune's seriousness made Old Jonar worried he didn't understand the joke, so he quickly added.
Brune gave him a slightly puzzled look: "Of course, I know."
Seeing Brune looking puzzled, Old Jonar was montarily stunned, but then couldn't help but laugh.
"Actually, every child of Thousand River Valley is like our children, including you, Brune. If you had t earlier, I might have adopted you."
"It would be my honor to have a father like you."
Brune didn't look at Old Jonar; instead, he enviously watched Jonar being playfully overwheld by his younger siblings.
"Let's have a toast." Old Jonar raised his wooden cup, "To our common enemies and our shared relatives."
Staring dumbfounded at Old Jonar for a while, Brune then clinked his cup against Old Jonar's with force.
"Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
Madlan lightly tapped his cup on Frick's tombstone, spilling a little wine that soaked into the damp soil.
"Quitting alcohol, I see you haven't quit at all, old friend," Madlan chuckled, sitting cross-legged before Frick's gravestone.
Twisting the wine cup in his fingers, Madlan had so many words, but none he could say.
He wanted to talk about how strong the Salvation Army was, about how beautiful Autumn Dusk Island was, about how fast these fleeting three months went by.
The wine clashed in the cup as if all his words sank into it.
"The children of Thousand River Valley are going to war again."
Madlan's voice was sowhat hoarse and dry as he looked at the simple wooden gravestone: "I'm sorry, but if we don't take them to war, more children will die in the future."
The gravestone didn't respond, only a gust of wind blew from afar.
A leaf that had survived the entire winter surprisingly fell in the spring breeze, landing on Madlan's shoulder.
He picked the dry leaf off his shoulder, spreading it on his palm. It was fragile, as if it would crumble at the touch, yet had endured the entire winter.
He clutched the holy image at his chest.
"Don't worry, I'm here, and so is His Eminence. Once we capture Joan of Arc Castle, once we expel the Thousand River Valley Church, we'll establish a brand-new Pope Country."
"I promise you, in the new Pope Country, every Thousand River Valley person can go ho, can have a ho."
"Our Pope Country will be a land where every child can laugh."
The wind dispersed Madlan's murmurs, turning them into the sound of a babbling stream.
Sitting cross-legged before the gravestone, the setting sun cast an oblique light on his side, creating a silhouette of one person, one stone, and nurous water cypresses on the ground.
The leaves rustled, the wind seed to mourn, or perhaps it sang with joy, Madlan couldn't tell.
Standing before the gravestone, he didn't know how long he sat there; suddenly, his ears perked up, as the wind and water sounds changed.
He slowly stood up, tilting his ear to listen. He heard it in the woods, in the spring breeze, in the blades of grass.
He heard the synchronized shouts and the clashing of armor from Autumn Dusk Island, carried far away by the wind.
"Blood Covering Cloud, sharpened soldiers, the heaven-sent Saint's Grandson slays the injustice!"
"Injustice, listen up, slay all injustice for everlasting peace!"
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